The door opened again, and Lieutenant Channer entered in undress, the day uniform when not on picket. He saluted, and prudently remained at attention until St Alban bid him stand at ease – which St Alban did not.
‘Mr Channer, a most disturbing letter has been sent to the commanding officer by an attorney in London acting on behalf of the parish of Chelsea claiming that you are in breach of a bastardy bond. That you have, indeed, been in breach of the said bond for three years, since its signing in fact. Can there be any substance in this allegation?’
‘With respect, Mr St Alban, I regard the matter as being entirely my affair, and think it impertinent in the extreme of this attorney to write to the colonel. He ought, if there be any complaint, to address it directly to me.’
‘He writes that he has, on no fewer than six occasions, and without reply, and that on learning of your departure here felt he had no alternative. Is there nothing to these allegations, then?’
‘I really must protest, St Alban: this is not a matter for gentlemen to concern themselves with.’
St Alban angered. He would have damned his eyes had he not thought it demeaned his appointment.
‘Mr Channer, let me be rightly understood. The matter is to my mind of the essence. The lady is of a respectable family, but it would scarcely matter less if she weren’t. There is a child to whose paternity you have admitted – sworn indeed – and for whose maintenance you therefore in all decency must make provision. Need I say more? The colonel does not know of this – yet. The letter was addressed to him impersonally and I therefore opened it. Were he to know its contents, I cannot vouch for the consequences. His temper is uncertain at this time. But I am of the opinion that he would refer the matter to a court martial on a charge of behaving in a scandalous, infamous manner, such as is unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman.’
‘I—’
‘You would be ruined whatever the verdict, which I cannot see could be other than “guilty”, in which case you would very likely be cashiered.’
‘I—’
‘You will therefore, this instant – at once, indeed – resign your commission. There is pen and paper in the antechamber. And having handed me your resignation you will quit the lines this very day for lodgings in the Fort and take passage home by the first sailing. Before leaving the lines, however, you will attend on the paymaster and sign an authority for recovery of the full amount owed to this unfortunate woman. He expects you.’
Channer was stunned, so complete and categorical were the terms. Then his aspect turned to insolence. ‘I see you have very well fixed me. A very willing little colonel’s fag.’
St Alban simply held his gaze.
Channer cleared his throat. ‘Very well. I bid you good day.’
‘Dismiss.’
Channer saluted, in a manner just compliant with regulation, and strode out.
When the door closed, St Alban leaned back in his chair and sighed with relief. He hadn’t been at all sure that Channer would leave without a fight (and even now he couldn’t be certain he’d not resile, cursing him for a prig and heaven knew what else), and nor had he been certain that he read the mind of the commanding officer rightly, who was perhaps more bound by strict procedure, but … For now, however, it looked as if there was just Waterman; and then they’d be shot of blackguards. There’d be just the usual run of idlers, scamps and dunces that were found in any regiment – with, thank God, one or two capable of greater things – though all of them, no doubt, brave enough when the call came.
IX
Council of War
Two days later
‘Gen’l’men!’
The serjeant-major’s usual bark was more moderated for regimental conferences, but imperative enough, and singular – just the ‘G’ and the second ‘N’ distinct, with those in between rolling into one in the rising minor third of the Tyne.
Hervey entered at nine o’clock precisely with Garratt, St Alban and Major Sleeman. He took off his cap, and smiled. ‘Be at ease, gentlemen. Be seated.’
The council of war – orders – was assembled in an open-sided marquee on the maidan beyond the horse lines. Hervey didn’t as a rule hold conferences seated. A seated conference somehow invited more discussion than was strictly necessary. Besides, men who spent a good part of the day in the saddle ought to favour standing upright to hear their colonel. This morning, however, he wanted his troop captains to have opportunity to take in the purpose and design of the coming months, so that as events unfolded – and doubtless unravelled the well-laid plans – they might better judge for themselves how to regain the scent, so to speak.
A dozen comfortable cane chairs were arranged in two ranks, with several more as flankers. Outside, a serjeant’s picket patrolled resolutely, ready to intercept the curious – if such were likely.
In the front rank sat the five troop leaders, numbered from the right, A to E (the sixth, F, Hardy’s, would remain on detached duty in Coorg for a good few months more). Vanneck – the Honourable Myles Vanneck – perhaps the most experienced, sat with his order book resting on a foreleg crossed confidently over the other. Hervey hadn’t expected him to come out to India, for he’d money enough to arrange a transfer and stay in England, and he was unmarried (India could offer him little prospect in that regard, even if plenty of consolation). To his left sat B Troop’s leader, Christopher Worsley, hardly less experienced, and even more agreeable. Hervey hadn’t expected him to come either, for he had a wife used to finer society than she’d find in Madras (but then, so had he such a wife …). Then Lord Thomas Malet, C’s captain, who’d been his adjutant when he’d assumed command – the best of men. His coming here too had been something of a surprise, although he was not yet of an age when dutiful thoughts of matrimony intruded. And to his left was Hayes, lately come on exchange from the Royals, wanting a troop – a quiet man, but whom the Chestnuts (although D now, like the other troops, were a mixed bag of remounts) seemed pleased with, their efficiency much improved of late. Then E, Oliphant’s – Leslie Oliphant of Bachilton – another extract, exchanged from the Ninetieth, who but for some long-disputed entail would have been Clan chief and inheritor of ample acres in Perthshire, but who instead had to eke out a modest annuity in service overseas. Hervey had yet to get the measure of him; he seemed quick of temper but not so quick of thought – though it might have been mere native prudence, for the Ninetieth were after all light infantry, meant to cut about. F Troop’s lieutenant, returned from Coorg with the monthly states, stood in for the captain.
In the rank behind sat Lieutenant & Quartermaster Collins and the rest of the regimental staff – Gaskoin, the veterinarian, unpolished but skilled; the surgeon, Milne; the paymaster, Cowper, grey-haired, untroublesome; the riding-master, Kewley, come to the regiment in Hounslow full of the gospel of St John’s Wood, delighting in his new commission after twenty years in the ranks of the 7th Hussars; the chaplain, Coote, a Welshman, a widower of some years come from a battalion leaving Madras for home, a literate rather than a graduate, which occasioned some disdain in the mess at first, but who had endeared himself by his work on the comforts committee.
And at the rear – his post on parade, whether mounted or on foot – and this morning ‘resting’ on the silver-topped Malacca cane brought out on special occasions instead of the day-to-day whip, stood the serjeant-major. For twenty-five years he’d braced-up dragoons for Hervey to address (in section, then troop, then squadron, and now regiment), and for twenty-five years Hervey had taken his counsel – for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. (The old sweats said ‘until death do them part’.)
A map of the country some eight feet square, from Fort St George to beyond Haidarabad in the north, and to Coorg in the west, hung at the front of the marquee. It had aroused much interest as they assembled – what clues as to their work, and where exactly. ‘Quite a reredos, eh, Coote?’ the paymaster had said. Malet had heard, and smiled. More a backdrop, h
e’d reckoned, for this was theatre.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ began Hervey, with a distinct note of relish; ‘there’s much country to hunt this morning, which no doubt is evident from the map. The regiment has two distinct but associated charges. Together, it may be a business of some heat, and perhaps some months. First, we are to pinch out the brigand tribe in the Northern Circars known as “thugs”; and then we are to stand ready to take prisoner the Ranee of Chintal in order that the government in Calcutta may annex that princely state – for the reason that will be made clear.’
No one spoke, but there was a collective stirring, a keen anticipation. There was very likely no one who’d known where Chintal was before seeing the map – not with any precision at least – or anything about it. Nor, until now, that its ruler was female. Still, they’d lately deposed the Rajah of Coorg; so unseating a woman should hardly be troublesome, an affair of only moderate heat at best. Hounding out these ‘thugs’ sounded far greater sport.
‘First, I have asked Major Sleeman, the general superintendent of operations against the bandits, who will by now be known to most if not all, to give his intelligence of thuggee, and its irruption in the Circars.’
Hervey took his seat and Major Sleeman rose to address them.
‘Gentlemen, many of you will be acquainted with stories of banditry, but I ask for your forbearance, for in order to convey the extremes of thuggee, I feel I must relate an actual account of their depravity – a deposition by an approver, a man turned King’s Evidence as it were; a deposition taken by me personally, and touching on the particular gangs which I believe are now active in the Northern Circars.’
The assembly sat back to listen. It was always pleasing to hear an account of crime and punishment at first hand.
‘The first relates to the murder of a party of silk merchants and their families …’
Sleeman spared them no detail. The fate of Bunda Ali and his party, had he known of it, could not have served his purpose better (except that the murder of a man in the regiment’s employ was an affront to honour as well as to all else). Then having revolted them thoroughly, he concluded with a depravity for which no officer, no dragoon indeed, could wish other than the speedy justice of the noose. ‘Having thought they’d killed every man and woman, and stripped and disposed of the bodies in the usual way, the thugs sat down to their hookahs and bhang thandai; but their attention was soon arrested by the figure of one Ghufoor Khan, their chief, dragging along a girl, who resisted to the utmost of her power, but who was evidently nearly exhausted: “Ha!” cried he, “Meer Chopra, is that you? Here have I been working like a true Pindaree, and have brought off something worth having; look at her, man! Is she not a Peri? a Hoori? The fool, her mother, must needs oppose me when I got into her tent, but I silenced her with a thrust of my sword, and lo! – here is her fair daughter, a worthy mate for a prince. Speak, my pretty one, art not thou honoured at the prospect of the embraces of Ghufoor Khan?”
‘Meer Chopra, my approver in this vile crime, says he could have killed him, for the girl was their sentence of death were she to denounce them. He appealed to Khan to follow their rule – to kill the girl – but the Khan laughed in his face and dragged her off. Meer Chopra says that she would fain have fled, and attempted to do so, but the Khan pursued and caught her, for her tender feet were cut by the rough ground. Ghufoor Khan told him in the morning, with a hellish laugh, that she’d tried to possess herself of his dagger to plunge into her own heart. “I spared her the trouble,” said the Khan.’
The disapproval was marked in the extreme. The faces of the front rank showed it, and the exclamations of those in the rear rank put words to it.
Sleeman was pleased. It wasn’t often he was able to address King’s officers, especially ones who were about to assist him in his work. ‘But not, I fear, before he’d defiled her in ways that no Christian ought to hear.’
‘Monstrous,’ said Worsley; ‘bestial.’
Sleeman closed his order book and said nothing more for the moment, allowing the outrage among his audience to do his work.
He’d calculated well: a tale or two of highway robbery, even accompanied by violence – by murder indeed – might be shrugged off in this land, especially the murder of money merchants and the like who took their chance, without precaution; but the murder of women and girls – even of low estate – and especially their defilement, must for any Englishman demand justice. Demand revenge, indeed; and above all for officers of His Majesty’s cavalry …
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, finally, ‘this Ghufoor Khan, who masquerades as a nujeeb, a militiaman, is abroad again, even on the road from Guntoor to Chintal. But to date he has eluded all our endeavours, for these depositions were made two years ago. With your help, however, I am confident that we shall apprehend him, and with his arrest, such will be the dismay, the fear, among the other bands – for the Khan is looked to as their leader – that there will come a check in their activities, so that there will then be an increase in approvers, and we might then take the chiefs and jemadars of all the bands one by one.’
At this, there was much appreciation, with calls to ‘take ’em to the gibbet’. But Sleeman had one more card to play. ‘Gentlemen, I am conscious that this is not a job for cavalry, for I am myself a cavalryman, albeit a native one, but I am persuaded – as is, more importantly, your colonel – that only cavalry can do it.’
And thus, said Hervey to himself, Sleeman elegantly enlisted every man assembled, whatever his first thoughts. For here addressing them was not a zealot, but a measured officer of infinite native experience. He himself had first thought the suppression of thuggee to be an impossibility (as well bid the incoming tide to stop, Canute-like), and yet he’d been persuaded these past few days that it might be reduced to a status that could not long stand, and that time and the ordinary sanction of law would see it dwindle to nothing, an occasional and minor irritant.
And not just that it might be reduced, but that it must.
Besides, there was the hideous possibility that Bunda Ali, the moonshee, might himself have been taken by thugs. And if so, then his wife and – God forbid it – his daughters also …
It was now his moment. He rose and stood square to address the ‘council’.
‘This, gentlemen, is not a job for soldiers; indeed it is not. But only soldiers can do it. And only cavalry, for celerity and ranging long will be of the essence, as well as the prowess of each dragoon in scouting. Now, the adjutant will issue the scheme of deployment and the marchtables, but my design for operations against the thugs can be simply put …’
X
The Distaff Side
Arcot House, that evening
‘Captain Worsley, Colonel.’ Serjeant Stray said it with a note of doubt. He was quite used to officers calling without notice at this time, but …
‘Indeed? Show him in.’
Hervey was sitting in an armchair by the open doors of the verandah in the west-facing room he used as a study. He put down the Madras Mail and rose as Worsley entered.
‘Colonel, I intrude.’
‘On nothing but the Mail’s comings and goings, I assure you. Whiskey?’
‘Thank you.’
Hervey poured two glasses, added soda and nodded to the second armchair. ‘Dorothea’s well, I trust?’
‘Very well. Thank you.’
Worsley took a sip, seeming to search for words. On the lawn outside, a coucal alternately pecked and called, its hooping distracting him further.
‘Griff’s pheasant, Somervile says they’re called,’ said Hervey, seeing his hesitation; ‘on account of some new-comes thinking them game then finding it rank to eat. Allegra puts out food for them – and the others.’
It seemed to do the trick. ‘Colonel, I’m excessively obliged to you for arranging things so that I might stay until Dorothea’s given birth, but – with respect – I believe it improper.’
The march table the adjutant had issued at the end of the conf
erence placed Worsley in command of rear details until F Troop returned, his lieutenant taking the troop to Guntoor instead.
Hervey sighed. ‘Not improper. Unnecessary, perhaps, but in the circumstances …’
‘Colonel, my troop takes the field; I must be at their head.’
‘We’re not facing the French, Christopher!’
Worsley shook his head. ‘If there’s a scrape …’
‘You scruple commendably, I can’t deny. But Hardy’s troop’ll be back in no time. All Edgeworth’s got to do is get them to Guntoor. They’ll not begin operations at once.’
‘All the same, Colonel …’
‘What says Dorothea?’
‘We’ve not spoken of it. I know she’d be of the same opinion.’
Hervey took a large sip of his whiskey. It was quite some thing that a man should know his wife’s opinion so decidedly. He thought for a good minute or so. ‘The firstborn, and all that. And here, not at home …’
‘But even so, Colonel.’
Hervey sighed, then smiled. ‘Very well, if you’re certain of it. I’ll have Garratt do duty instead. It’s a small matter. And is that all?’
‘It is all, Colonel, yes.’
He made to leave.
‘Kezia will be at hand, of course.’
‘Yes; it will be a great comfort for Dorothea, and for me to know.’
It had been the other way round in London, at the concert, when Kezia had had her ‘seizure’, as Milne called it, the culmination of what he diagnosed as ‘chronic puerperal melancholy’; and what the less clinically practised called derangement. (Without Dorothea Worsley there, he was sure they’d have been in a greater lather – without Dorothea and Milne, that is.) He supposed that giving birth in India was not greatly different from in England, but Kezia having now done so – and a fine, healthy infant he was – he imagined she must be some support.
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